Notices by Winchell Chung ⚛🚀 (nyrath@spacey.space), page 2

Tested to see if the fuel elements were resistant to being shattered, and exiting into the exhaust plume in a glowing radioactive cloud of death.

https://www.ga.com/ga-successfully-tests-nuclear-thermal-propulsion-reactor-fuel-at-nasa-marshall-space-flight-center

https://xkcd.com/3037/

@SFFMagazineCovers

Well, that is because one of the biggest cheerleaders of Dianetics was John W. Campbell jr, who just so happened to be the editor for Astounding magazine.

Mastodon spaceflight mass-mind, please come to my aid. My google-fu is failing me.

In the Apollo program, Saturn V’s S-II (second stage) employed four ullage motors situated on the aft interstage skirt. Additionally, the third S-IVB stage incorporated an Auxiliary Propulsion System designed for ullage purposes. These settled the fuel so the engines did not injest vapor and shred.

Question: why didn't the ullage motors need ullage motors?

@mattblaze @simplenomad

I remember when I was a child being taught to "Duck and Cover". And being shown some cartoon about a turtle.

https://phys.org/news/2024-12-astronauts-unique-visual-lunar-south.html

@futurebird

Agreed.

I was born in the late 1950s and read a lot of science fiction while growing up. Stuff like Nineteen Eighty Four, Brave New World, A Clockwork Orange, The Marching Morons, and John Brunner's Club of Rome Quartet.

So my entire life has been watching the world go through a slow motion disaster as each of those novels became true. 🤦♂️

I am waiting with dread for the global spread of Star Trek's Eugenics Wars.

@futurebird

What really frightens me is Heinlein's description of Nehemiah Scudder in the afterward to his Revolt In 2100...

@Tim_Eagon

@jautero @intransitivelie @jdnicoll

"English is the product of a Norman warrior trying to make a date with an Anglo-saxon bar-maid, and as such is no more legitimate than any of the other products of that conversation."

H. Beam Piper "Little Fuzzy"

https://futurism.com/elon-musk-city-mars-death-catastrophe

https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-just-released-a-fireplace-video-for-the-holidays-and-its-hilarious

Take us out, Mr. Sulu.

The surviving cast of Star Trek the original series

I am re-reading Robert Heinlein's Revolt In 2100 and becoming depressed.

Especially the Postscript "Concerning Stories Never Written", about the rise of Nehemiah Scudder.

Now I become further depressed, thinking about V: The Original Miniseries (1983).

Less The Cheeto Bambito as Nehemiah Scudder and more It "Can't Happen Here" from outer space (see the Historical References section)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_(1983_miniseries)

@cstross

Which is a polite and gentlemanly way of telling me "don't try to teach your grandmother how to suck eggs". I'll be quiet now.

@FredKiesche

I wonder if that was the inspiration for the Symbs in John Varley's The Ophiuchi Hotline?

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=2228

@cstross

I'm no expert, but it seems to me that libertarianism is severely at odds with what the main character of Piper's Space Viking was advocating. Especially the bit about the ruling class should be allowed to kill commoners to maintain public order.

More depressing prophetic scifi reading. From Space Viking by H. Beam Piper (1962)

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/origin-supernova-94-years/